Accompanying the first exhibition dedicated to Walter Sickert at Tate since 1960, this hardback exhibition book features over 200 images from the exhibition, a wide range of essays by scholars, and reflections on Sickert's relevance and influence by a selection of contemporary painters including Kaye Donachie and Somaya Critchlow.

Walter Sickert was one of the most influential artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An apprentice of Whistler and close associate of Degas, he engaged with the work of French artists of the time. Sickert's imagination was fuelled by news and current events such as the Camden Town Murders and newspaper photography, but also by popular culture – music halls, the stage, the rise of cinema and celebrity. He influenced many British painters up to the present day.

This catalogue shows how Sickert transformed the representation of everyday life with his innovative approach to subject matter, radical compositions and the evocation of the materiality of existence in paint. It will explore the changing nature of his work – from an impressionistic approach in the 1880s to a pioneering use of photography in the 1930s – and how he returned over and over to locations and subjects, including his penetrating self-portraits.

Emma Chambers is responsible for acquisitions, exhibitions and research for British art from 1890–1945. Since joining Tate she has focused particularly on women artists and on émigré artists in Britain, co-curating the exhibitions Migrations, 2012, and Schwitters in Britain, 2013. Displays have included Focus: William Roberts, 2012, BP Spotlight: Sylvia Pankhurst, 2013 andBP Spotlight: Women and Work, 2013. Emma Chambers is the curator of Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One.